Netflix and DreamWorks Animation secure Streaming Deal

Netflixand DreamWorks Animation have secured a new streaming deal. DreamWorks Animation – the company behind the successful movie franchises Shrek and Madagascar – are teaming up with an online streaming powerhouse Netflix, in a deal worth $30 million per picture, over an unspecified period of years. This would be the first time a major Hollywood studio partners with an online streaming company. Beginning in 2013, DreamWork’s animation and Netflix will begin streaming movies and television specials, like the prehistoric comedy The Croods; Turbo, about a garden snail voiced by Ryan Reynolds; and Peabody & Sherman, which is an adaptation of the popular Rocky and Bullwinkle characters. Thereafter, Netflix will begin streaming other titles from the DreamWork’s library, which will become available over time, such as Antz and the Kung Fu Panda films.

DreamWorks was let out of their contract with HBO two years early, and the current deal with Netflix will serve as a replacement. What is truly great about this deal, is that Netflix customers will gain new television content to their streaming services.

Signaling support for Netflix, John Weiser, president of domestic distribution for Sony Pictures Television, called it an “important player and a great customer,” and said the two companies were “actively discussing producing original programming together.”

In addition, what you will begin to see here, according to Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer:

“You’re seeing power moving back into the hands of content creators. When a company like DreamWorks ends a long-running pay TV deal — when a new buyer in the space steps up — that’s a really interesting landscape shift.”

The online streaming market is surging with competition from the likes of Amazon, Apple, and Vudu–which is a streaming service owned by WalMart. Netflix access to movies and TV shows are the biggest concern for the company and with the recent abandonment by Starz, Netflix may lose the right to stream popular films from Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

I keep asking myself, how successful will Netflix be if only films from DreamWorks will soon begin to clutter my queue? With Starz films soon to be eliminated February 2012, what else is there for Netflix? What else is there left for me? I just learned that a new Netflix company, Qwikster, will soon begin handling Netfix’s DVD service. It seems that Netflix forgot all too quickly, what it is like to be a consumer. The reason for millions of us choose Netflix for DVD and streaming services was due to the low-cost option of using BOTH, in one convenient location.

Many are beginning to say that Netfilx will become the new MySpace. Well, I guess I will continue to hang on to my Netfilx streaming service to the very end–or at least until a better deal shows up–which shouldn’t be too hard to find.